If there is a document that is almost guaranteed to cause tension within both client and agency teams its got to be “the brief”. If you’re not trying to seek out its existence, then you’re arguing over what should and shouldn’t be included. Is it too long, not long enough, have you tried to be too ‘creative’ in writing it and where oh where are the KPIs?!
In fact, if you ask ten people what they see as “the brief”, you’ll get ten different answers — a strategic wild west of formats, expectations, and opinions. But most of the tension comes down to one basic misunderstanding: ‘The brief’ isn’t one thing. And that’s OK.
So let’s break it down.
🧠 The Client Brief (AKA: The Business Brief)
This is where it starts. Often written by commercial marketing or brand teams, the client brief sets out the business problem that needs solving. Think of it as the why — the commercial context, the customer challenge, the internal ambition. It doesn’t need to be sexy. But it does need to be clear.
Done well, the client brief defines:
- The business or brand objective
- The challenge or opportunity
- The key propositions
- The target audience (from a customer & commercial lens)
- Success metrics (yes, real ones)
Importantly: This brief isn’t here to inspire the creative team. It’s here to give strategic direction and align stakeholders before anything goes out the door. That’s why creative teams get upset when their brief is a copy and paste of the client brief, it is not fit for purpose for the creative team.
🎯 The Agency Brief
This is the translation point — where business context is turned into creative opportunity.
The agency brief (often led by planners or strategists) is designed to sharpen and reframe the client’s ask into something more pointed, relevant, and audience-led. It’s where layers get added — insights, behaviour, cultural context — to make sure the creative work has something to grab hold of.
It’s also where the challenge gets rearticulated in a way the agency team can believe in. Not just “drive X% growth,” but “reclaim emotional relevance” or “be the first brand that talks about this in that way.”
The best agency briefs:
- Reframe the challenge in a human way
- Deliver a sharp, single-minded proposition
- Inspire collaboration across planning, creative, media and beyond
Top Tip: If you don’t already, see this brief as the first point of collaboration between client and agency teams. Write and craft it together so that you have a shared responsibility for the ask and what success will look like.
🎨 The Creative Brief
This is where the magic starts. Built off the agency brief, the creative brief has one goal: to spark ideas.
It still needs to be grounded in strategy, but it should now be distilled — tighter, more emotional, more provocative. The best ones have a clear proposition (a rallying cry, a strategic dare) and enough context to steer but not stifle.
The creative brief includes:
- The ultimate objective – What do we need to do
- A motivating human truth or insight
- The single most important thing to communicate
- Tone of voice, mandatories, channels — and creative springboards
Importantly, this brief isn’t about repeating the business ask. It’s about finding an inspiring way to communicate the key information that lets the team explore, play, and push ideas that will ultimately achieve the big objective.
So… why do these differences matter?
Because too often, we judge a brief by what it’s not.
Planners get frustrated with vague client briefs.
Clients get overwhelmed by strategic agency documents.
Creatives roll their eyes at briefs that read like business plans.
But each brief serves its own purpose — and each one is crucial at the stage it’s in.
The So What?
When you understand the real differences between the client brief, the agency brief, and the creative brief — and the unique role each one plays — you stop wasting time trying to turn one into the other.
You stop chasing the mythical “perfect” brief, and start collaborating on the right brief for the right moment. And ultimately that’s where better work starts.
The So What... 